Big Weekend

Woah- this is going to be a long one. First of all- sorry for no entry last week... we had a bunch of thunderstorms on Wednesday night and lost our electricity until Thursday night. It's funny how a 10 month old really doesn't require much electricity- her toys are battery operated and she'd much rather play outside anyway. It was much more entertaining than if I'd been here alone! Anyway, Thursday night when it came back on, I was getting ready for the 4th of July party we had on Friday.

(Here is Avery in her pre-4th of July outfit. I didn't want her to get her actual outfit dirty before the party, and yes, it was so cool that she needed a sweater when we went for a walk)


(Here she is helping me prune my plants before the party)


(And here is why I didn't put her real outfit on until later)

The party was nice! We had about 20 people over here, and Dave made some awesome ribs. The weather was perfect, so we all just sat outside, had cocktails, played bocce ball, etc. Avery's friend Kaitlyn came, so it was fun to see the girls play around each other. I can't exactly say that they play "together" quite yet, but I know they will =) Here they are hanging out in the pack n play:

Teething much?

Kickin' party, right?
Both girls loved playing in the water table:

Family pic- gotta love our patriotic outfits.Daddy and Avery playing:

End of the party- lost the clothes, so cute in their matching Elmo diapers!

Good times!

Saturday, we had a BIG day working on the house. The rest of our weekends this summer get pretty busy so we knocked out as much as possible yesterday. By noon, we had already gone to Home Depot, rented a power washer, bought the supplies to stain both decks, washed the front and back decks, ripped several rotten boards out of the front walkway, and pruned all the bushes in the front of the house. As Dave returned the power washer and bought new boards to replace the old ones, Avery and I mowed and weed-eated the front and back yards. Then Dave replaced 3 boards in the front walk as well as the side edges and we stained the front walk way. Then we decided the color stain we bought wasn't quite right, so Avery and I went back to Home Depot to return that/get new stain, while Dave stayed home and repaired the paint that was peeling off of the garage, borrowed a ladder, cleaned out all the gutters and caulked up the gutter leaks. THEN we stained the back deck. Yowzer! Sweet baby Avery was an angel all day, hanging out beside us playing in the pack n play or at the water table. She was very tolerant! It was nice to get all those projects done- I'm sure people will be knocking down the door to buy our house next spring =)

This day o'projects got me thinking about home stores like Home Depot and Lowe's, and how I would like to see the statistics on how many times per day people have to return to buy more supplies once they start a project. Every time we have ever been to one of these stores, say, in the morning before we start working, we have had to return at LEAST once to pick up something we discovered we didn't have. What the heck do you do, if say, you don't live very close to one of these stores? Plan ahead in very great detail? Never get a project done in a day? Maybe once you've been a homeowner for a very long time, you accumulate so many paint brushes, ladders, extra screws, sandpaper, cleaning supplies, yard tools, extension cords, etc., that you don't have to make these extra trips? I mean, we're pretty detail oriented, but we can never get through a project without several trips to the hardware store. It's a given!

Anyway, hope you all have a good week and enjoyed my very random 4th of July pics!